I was at a coffee shop picking up a client’s dead laptop one day. As I was leaving I bumped into a networker who asked me to help with their mobile hotspot device. The hotspots came from their cell provider and they had their original one which failed and a replacement one which was supposed to work. They were having trouble getting either one working with their laptop.
A hotspot provides the user with a secure Wi-Fi connection in case there isn’t a land-based Wi-Fi Access Point available like a coffee shop or library.
I starting investigating one of the hotspot devices by powering it on and its display showed a power-on self-test and a signal strength icon with a spinning wheel. Using my smartphone, I found the hotspot listed in the WiFi network and successfully connected to it. The password was printed on the hotspot device.Next. I connected my client’s laptop to the hotspot and they could now browse the internet.
I started working on the other hotspot device to see if it worked or not. When it was powered on, the self-test ran and I was ready to test it. Once again my smartphone was used to test it, but no new hotspots were listed. I looked on the hotspot display and no signal strength wheel icon was present. Also, no data counter was there either and I knew this was defective one. My client will ship this one back to her smartphone company and start using the good one.